David Bjork
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I am seeking re-election to the Georgetown School Committee to continue the tasks I set forth three years ago during my first term. On May 11, 2009, you will have the opportunity to vote for two people out of a pool of three candidates. The two candidates with the highest vote count will serve our children and community for another three years. I would like to take this opportunity to highlight my accomplishments while serving our community over the past three years and, for those of you who do not know me, my motivation to represent you has always been to create a fair, accessible school district for our children without losing sight of the fact that our schools belong to you as representatives of our community.
The decision you make on May 11, 2009 should not be taken lightly. The chool Department has a total budget of $14 million and the taxpayer share of our budget represents nearly two-thirds of property taxes collected. We represent nearly three-fourths of the town’s paid employees and have three school buildings. Our operations are complicated and our task requires a commitment to spending the time necessary to carrying out our legislative responsibility of being advocates for our schools. I am proud of the fact that for the past three years, I have represented all 1,700 of our students with fairness and I have challenged inequity. While the School Committee and I have taken our lumps over the years, we never lost sight of what was important: doing what’s best for our children and community. After all, we are in the business of educating children.
Over the past three years, these are a few of the things I have accomplished through my service on the School Committee:
Personally interviewed Superintendent Jacobs and made the recommendation to the Committee for her hire. As a result of this
hiring, the School Department has built a strong administrative team that will address the concerns of MCAS at the elementary level, the need to strengthen our middle school curriculum, expand electives at the high school and work towards removing our middle/high school from accreditation warning. We have made substantial progress in this area.
Promoted transparency in our budget process. The Committee implemented a zero-based budget process that justifies every dollar spent. We have found it to be beneficial to us doing an effective job in protecting your hard-earned tax dollars and providing a more open process to the public. As a result of this process, we have reversed a negative trend of requesting double-digit budget increases by requesting 5.6% and 4.9% for fiscal years 2009 and 2010 respectively. We have not requested an override for two years for our operating budget and have built an infrastructure that can live within its means. This is a far cry from what the financial picture looked like before I was elected.
Programmatically, I supported adding new courses and expanding existing programs to give our children more options. While we have made progress, we have much more to do. The schools also hired a new Curriculum Director and she is working on a review of the entire curriculum at all of our schools.
During my term, we appointed a new Special Education Director to review our internal processes and identify opportunities for
improvement. I am committed to our children with special needs that they get the education they deserve, while thinking creatively in developing programs within our schools so our children have an option to stay within district. This will serve our families with special needs children better, while better utilizing our financial resources.
I challenged the School Committee to give issues some attention such as the one-way rule that existed at the middle school and to review school choice as it related to overcrowding. I have always understood the value of diversity and the benefits that school choice brings to our community. However, with class sizes over 30 students at the high school and overcrowding in the middle/high school building, taking in more students does in fact reach a breaking point. We have large grade levels pushing through the middle/high school and the days of less than 100-student graduating classes are over for the foreseeable
future. School choice should be reviewed each year to determine if our schools have capacity to bring in more kids from outside the district. I supported the Superintendent's recommendation for 2009-2010 to keep school choice, but not open any new slots for the the upcoming school year, based on her review of our current capacity.
I currently serve on the School Committee’s negotiations subcommittee currently negotiating with the teacher’s union. This union represents our front-line workers, dedicated individuals who deal directly with our children. With that said, we also have the obligation to make sure that we are striking the right balance with all of our unions between fair compensation and the impact on our town’s financial structure. I take this task very seriously.
I have served for three years on the Public Safety Committee to improve the well being of our children. Over the years, we have dealt with code-blue issues, developed a crisis plan, as well as worked on traffic matters, and many other safety issues. We have developed a fantastic relationship with the Police, Fire and Highway Departments, and everyone agrees that the safety of our children is a top priority.
I worked with my school committee colleagues to do a comprehensive review and update to the School Committee Policy Manual. This had not been done since 1972 and we all committed time to update this so we had consistent and updated policies in place for future committees.
I am asking for your support of the incumbent candidates seeking re-election as Anne Donahue and I have more work to do. We have been confronted with major challenges during our first term and we did not avoid the difficult decisions. Three years just gets you started and turnover on our board at this juncture will not best serve the town.
Thank you for your time and vote for David Bjork for re-election on May 11, 2009.
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